Peasant Movements in India: Part II: Bardoli Satyagraha

Bardoli Satyagraha: This movement started in 1928 and was led by the bonded agricultural labourers who served the upper class of landowners in Gujarat in the district of Surat. Like in every state in Gujarat too the exploitation of the small peasants were going on for the collection of taxes and land rents by the British officials. Surat is an agriculturally productive region of the state. The land revenue system which existed in the state was called as the Hali system. The landowners or the big landlords who imposed taxes on the peasants were called as the halpatis. Like in Bengal, in Gujarat too, the small peasants had to give away land to the big landlords when they were unable to pay the revenues or if they were not able to pay off the loans. The small peasants in the rural areas were dependent on the money borrowed from the landowners or the landlords and the moneylenders for marriage purposes or any other financial requirement of the peasant household. These loans were usually paid off to the small and marginal peasants at very high rates of interest. The small and marginal peasants were often unable to pay off the loans. As a result of this the small and marginal peasants were forced to give away their land to the landlords or the halpatis. In this way, the entire family of the marginal peasants were indebted (or liable to pay off the loan) to the landlords. The peasants were then made to work for the landlords as bonded labourers. If the peasants were not able to pay off then their sons and grandsons were also made to work as bonded labourers in the land. 

The landlords in the state mostly belonged to the upper caste groups of Patidars (Kunbis), Anavil Brahmins and Rajputs. While the peasants mostly belonged to the backward caste groups of Dublas, Naikas, Chodhras, Dudhias and Gamits. The Bardoli Satyagraha mainly took palce after there was a 30% increase in the amount of tax to be paid by the peasants to the landlords. Most of the landlords in the district were absentee landlords. Absentee landlords refer to those landlords who owned huge tracts of land in the villages but they did not reside physically in the villages. In other words, these landlords were mostly absent from the rural areas. The land was looked after by the next class of medium farmers who stayed in the villages and looked after the cultivation in the land of the absentee landlords. In other words, the land was leased-out to the tenants who cultivated the land and paid revenue from the land to the absentee landlords. The rural community including the small and marginal peasants and also the different class of tenants rose against the increase in land revenue. 

At the first stage, the increase in revenue was reduced from 30% to 22% and finally it was reduced to only 6.25%. The movement not only demand for a 'no-tax' system. It also demanded of distributing the land to the small and marginal peasants from the absentee landlords. It was Rao Bahadur Bhimabhai Naik who had bought the resold land from the absentee landlords and distributed them to the small and marginal peasants who were the actual cultivators of the land. Thus this meant that those peasants who gave away land in the hali system got their land back. An interesting aspect of this movement was that the different class of peasants joined hands together to fight against the exploitation of the Company rules and the exploitation of the landlords.